The newly reinstalled antiquities at the Getty Villa make the story of art accessible and engaging to a 21st-century audience.

The paradox of the classical world is that it is ever-present, pervading so many aspects of daily life, and at the same remote to the concerns of that life. So when Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, decided to reinstall its collection of antiquities in its Villa, he faced a high bar: how to make that material more accessible and engaging to a 21st-century audience. The context didn’t make the job any easier: Los Angeles, city of the continually new, where surface is all. But he has cleared...